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Monday, November 24, 2008

It is about a year ago, I discovered the podcast series from the UCLA institute of Israel Studies. Soon after that, the feed went off line for nearly a whole year, only to be revived very recently and be enriched with about four new lectures. (Israel studies podcast) Two of these I want to review here.

The first is a lecture by Galia Golan in which she tries to argue that a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is still possible. It has been noted in reviews on this blog also, that there is a considerable worry that neither the Israeli leaders nor the Palestinian leaders have enough authority and legitimacy to broker such a deal and successfully convince the public to accept it. Golan admits the leaders are weak, but her main point is that everybody around the conflict still steers towards such a solution (see for example the Arab peace initiative) and the populations, are so desperately longing for a settlement, they will be happy to accept a peace, even from a weak government. In this whole reasoning, Golan ignores the point made by the pessimists that the Palestinian authority has deteriorated beyond the point of being weak, they claim Palestine is a failed state (in advance of its existence) and therefore simply cannot exist. (see: Rise and demise of Palestine)

The second podcast is a lecture by former American diplomat Aaron David Miller (photo). This lecture is very similar to the one he gave on UChannel (see: The Arab-Israeli conflict). Miller has interviewed a whole range of important figures around the diplomatic channels within the conflict and has critically analyzed the history, which includes his own work, of diplomacy in the Middle East. He tried to understand why Kissinger, Carter and Baker succeeded and why Clinton and Bush failed. He discovered how ethno-centric his views always have been and how he underestimated the cultural difference between him and the Israelis and Arabs even if they looked and sounded so thoroughly western like for example Netanyahu. He also figured how religion has been neglected as a factor in diplomacy. (similar to Douglas Johnston on the podcast with SOF) What I find especially good in the lecture by Miller is this quality to be self-critical and show the open ends, even if this keeps us stuck with too few conclusions.

There have been so many podcast I have listened to in the past days, that I have not yet reviewed, I may decide on skipping a couple or lumping them together in single posts. As to new podcasts (new for this blog) we have the following.

- A number of German podcasts. One about history, that I will take separately (Geschichtspodcast) and a couple more that I am likely to review in one post together.
- I heard the meetings podcast in a conversation with Chris Brogan
- Music Podcasts - God knows I tried to avoid these. I understand very little of music. I listen to talk talk talk on my iPod all the time, what can I possibly say of a music podcast? I have had Sunday Sundown on my list to review for a long time and In My Living Room recently joined. So I will have to delve in.
- Also from Report a Podcast is UCLA's Political Science 10

On the returning front we have
- Exploring Environmental History
- UCLA's Israel Studies
- Dan Carlin's Hardcore History with Victor Davis Hanson
- Philosophy Bites about virtue
- The Word Nerds about Irony and Satire and George Carlin
- '14-'18, the Dutch podcast Veertien Achttien

That is at least eleven posts. I am not sure if I can churn out eleven posts before Friday. Wait and see.

I love to get new podcast recommendations. You can let your preferences know by commenting on the blog or sending mail to The Man Called Anne at: Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

The most elite of the podcast reviewers (and most especially in the History genre). We use Anne is a Man! as a sort of barometer for how we are doing. Anne is a Man can assume the role of THE podcast reviewer on line; no one does it as well as he does.